Israel attacks Syria to distract attention from domestic woes

An analyst says the recent airstrike carried out by the zionist Israeli regime was Prime Minister Netanyahu’s way of ‘creating a climate of war’ to ward off his people’s attention from domestic problems.

The comment comes as Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah has condemned the Israeli regime’s aerial assault that targeted a research center near the Syrian capital.

In a statement issued on Thursday, Hezbollah described the Israeli regime’s attack on Syria as “barbaric,” saying it “strongly condemns this new Zionist aggression,” which revealed its true intention towards Lebanon’s neighbor.

On Wednesday, the Syrian army said two people were killed and five others injured in an Israeli airstrike on a research center in Jamraya, near the capital, Damascus. Israel declined to comment on the issue.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Hisham Jaber, director for Center for Middle East Studies to further discuss the issue. What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Mr. Jaber, Israel’s attack has prompted Iran, Russia and Hezbollah’s condemnation. We know that an Arab nation’s territory is being violated here by Israel. Why have other Arab states and other Arab governments remained silent on this?

Jaber:Why the answer is very clear that Arab countries specially in the Gulf countries are involved in war against Syria with the insurgents. They believe that they don’t have any role to play.

Don’t expect from the Arab countries to declare any war even to protest against Israel since the United States of America which they believe they are allies to it did not condemn this aggression against sovereign states like Syria.

This is the answer but why it happened, why Israel did it, we can’t answer this question.

Press TV: Indeed, how do you think Syria will respond to this violation? I’m not sure that the Syrian government would reply they are studying the situation now and Syria has the capability to reply against Israel because Syria has very strong missiles, you know has thousand s of missiles that Syria can reply against Israel but the question is if Syria would reply and launch hundreds of missiles it can harm Israel but will be the position of Israel?

Jaber: Of course Israel will re-reply and at this time I think it would be the beginning of war and I don’t think also Hezbollah will remain silent in Lebanon and we’ll be talking about a regional war maybe Iran will be involved in it.

And now as we heard in the news that Russia asks Syria not to reply and also Mrs. Ashton, the European community also asked Syria to cool down and not to reply and not to start any war against Israel and also that the United States of America sent a message to Syria through a third party telling the Syrians we hope that the Syrian regime will not reply.

Press TV: Personally I don’t think Syria will reply very soon but Syria will not forget this aggression from Israel. That’s the whole issue. We cannot decide if it would reply or not but also if Israel will continue its aggression I don’t think so.

The timing of this aggression came for political domestic Israeli problem because Netanyahu did not win in the election like he hoped to win. In order to have a new cabinet he preferred to create a climate of war and to have an emergency cabinet.